“I’m elated. What’s the special box?”
“The box of words we never say to Mommy,” says Bex.
“Or even near Mommy.” Didier sets the girl down, and she scurries back toward the house. “I see you didn’t bring anything, which is awesome.”
“What?”
“My wife adheres to the twentieth-century belief that civilized people arrive with small gifts or contributions to an invited meal. And once again this proves her wrong because you’re civilized but, as usual, you brought zilch.”
The biographer foresees the wince, the disapproval filed away. Susan keeps track to the grave.
Pliny the Younger stomps behind while Bex gives the biographer yet another tour of her room. She is very proud of her room. The purple walls are thick with fairies, leopards, alphabets, and Pinocchio noses. When her brother dares to move a rabbit from the bed, Bex slaps his hand; he yowls; the biographer says, “I don’t think you’re supposed to do that.”
“It was only a soft hit,” says the girl. “See, I have one shelf for the monster and one shelf for the fish. Here’s a squirrel mummy.”
The biographer peers. “Is that a real squirrel?”
“Yeah, but it died. Which is, like, when …” Bex sighs, twists her hands together, and looks up at the biographer. “What is death?”
“Oh, you know,” says the biographer.
Blond-brown, endearing, demanding, sometimes quite irritating—how eerily they resemble Susan and Didier. It’s much more than the coloring: they are shaped like their parents, Bex with Didier’s shadowy eye sockets, John with Susan’s elfin chin—small faces imprinted by two traceable lineages. They are the products of desire: sexual, yes, but more importantly (in the age of contraception, at least) they come from the desire to recur. Give me the chance to repeat myself. Give me a life lived again, and bigger. Give me a self to take care of, and better. Again, please, again! We’re wired, it’s said, to want repeating. To want seed and soil, egg and shell, or so it’s said. Give me a bucket and give me a bell. Give me a cow with her udders a‑swell. Give me the calf—long eyes, long tongue—who clamps the teat and sucks.
Downstairs she trips on a plastic truck and slams elbow first into a side table. The floor is choked with toys. She kicks a blue train against the wall.
“They live in squalor,” says Pete Xiao.
“I may have sprained my elbow.”
“That aside, how are you?” Pete came to Central Coast Regional two years ago, to teach math, and announced he’d only be here for one year because he wasn’t built for a hinterland. This year, too, is meant to be his last; and next year will undoubtedly be his last.
“Swell,” she says. Swollen. The Ovutran bloats.
They gather in the dining room, which Susan’s forebears rigged up in style: fat oak ceiling beams, hand-carved wall panels, built‑in credenza. The little black roast is sliced and served. Munchings and slurpings.
“This year’s parents,” says Pete, “are even more racist than last year’s. One guy goes, ‘I’m glad my child is finally studying math with someone of your persuasion.’”
“Calm your yard, Pete-moss,” says Didier.
“I have a yard?”
“It’s in your pants, nestled like a teeny mouse.”
“How very white of you to change the subject away from model-minority stereotypes.”
“Hey, Roosevelt, are you using only white sperm donors out of racism?”
“Didier, God,” says Susan.
“White is the state color of Oregon,” says Pete.
“The kid is already going to feel weird about his paternity situation,” says the biographer, “and I don’t want to add to the confusion.”
“Once you have that kid, you won’t be able to take a dump by yourself. And you’ll become even less cool than you are now. As they say, ‘Heroin never hurt my music collection, but parenthood sure has!’”
“No one says that,” says Susan, reaching for another roll.
“I once did a research paper,” says Didier, “on the history of words for penis, and ‘yard’ was a preferred term until a couple of centuries ago.”
“Was that considered a research topic at your wattle-and-daub college?” says Pete.
“Not wattle and daub,” says Susan, “so much as frosted glass block and drive-through window.”
“What’s wattle and daub?” says Bex.
Didier scratches his neck. “Even if it had been a community college, which it was not, so what? I mean, literally, meuf, why would it matter?”
Pete shouts, “Why does everyone say ‘literally’ so much these days?”
“‘When I lay with my bouncing Nell,’” recites Didier, “‘I gave her an inch, but she took an Ell: But … it was damnable hard, When I gave her an inch, she’d want more than a Yard.’ Ell meant the minge, by the way.”
“Yet he can’t remember the name of the kids’ pediatrician,” says Susan.
Didier gives his wife a long look, rises from the table, heads for the kitchen.
He returns with a butter dish.
“We don’t need butter,” says Susan. “Why did you get out the butter?”
“Because,” he says, “I want to put some butter on my potatoes. They happen to be a little dry.”
“Daddy,” says Bex, “your face just looked like a butt.” Giggles. “Don’t be a buttinski, you buttinski!”
“Use your NPR voice, chouchou,” says Didier.
“I hate NPR!”
“What Daddy means is you need to speak more quietly, or you’re leaving the table.”
Bex whispers something to her brother, then counts to three. “AAAAAAHHHHHH!” they roar.
“That’s it,” snaps Susan. “You’re done. Leave the table.”
“But John’s not done! If you don’t feed us it’s, um, it’s child abuse.”
“Where did you hear that term?”
“Jesus,” says Didier, “she prolly got it from TV. Relax.”
Susan closes her eyes. For a few seconds, nothing moves. Then her eyes open and her voice comes out placid: “Let’s go, sprites, time for bath. Say good night!”
Pete and Didier keep opening beers and ignoring the biographer. Their conversation topics include European soccer, artisanal whiskey, famous drug overdoses, and a multiplayer video game whose name sounds like “They Mask Us.” Then Didier, suddenly remembering her, says: “Instead of driving a million miles to Salem, why don’t you just go to the witch? I saw her the other day, waiting outside the school. At least I think it was her, although she looks less witchy than most of the girls at Central Coast.”
“She’s not a witch. She’s—” Tall, pale, heavy browed. Eyes wide and pond-green. Black cloth pinned around her neck. “Unusual.”
“Still,” says Didier, “worth a try?”